


Cliffside conversation

by Msomaji



Category: Merlin (TV)
Genre: Ambiguous/Open Ending, Gen, Kid Fic, Oneshot, Story within a Story, Time Travel, Young!ARTHUR, early season 5
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-01
Updated: 2020-06-01
Packaged: 2021-03-02 18:21:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,935
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24491194
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Msomaji/pseuds/Msomaji
Summary: Nine year old Arthur wanders off to climb a cliff and Merlin follows. After all, someone needs to make sure the prince gets back in one piece. Preferably before tomorrow, when the young boy needs to travel back to his own time. King Arthur's return, and the safety of the realm, depend on it.
Kudos: 22





	Cliffside conversation

**Author's Note:**

> Please note that this oneshot relates a slice-of-life from a much bigger story that is only partially revealed. Big chunks, including how the bigger story may end, are hinted at but mostly left open to your imagination. Some more notes at the end of the story.

"Come back here!"

"No!"

A blond head bobbed a horse-length down the steep slope in the rocky terrain of the gorge in the valley of the fallen kings. Small fingers clumsily moved from a crumbling ridge to a sturdier appearing bush that poked out of a slit in the boulder.

"Arthur!" Merlin commanded, voice stern.

"You cannot tell me what to do, peasant! I am the king!" the boy shouted back delightedly and full of challenge. His blond head disappeared, noise of rattling grit and groaning of stuck-but-loose rocks followed.

Merlin grumbled, rolling onto his belly to carefully but resolutely hoist his legs over the ledge and follow the boy. His boot clad feet found unsteady purchase on a two inch thick ridge. He looked to up to see Gwaine regard him with an amused frown.

"Trouble?"

"Always." Merlin acknowledged. "Can you go round and await Arthur down the gorge? I'll follow him to ensure he doesn't injure himself."

"You sure it's not you we should be worried about getting injured?" Gwaine grinned as Merlin attempted a hesitant step down.

"You would not believe the amount of times I followed Arthur when he had the great idea to climb something. Towers, cliffs, castle walls... This is nothing."

"Glad to hear it, Merlin, you won't mind if I send Leon after you with a rope though? Wouldn't want to bear the anger of the actual princess when he's back and realises you died following his cuter self."

"He would be relieved to be finally rid of my incompetent service." Merlin grinned back.

"Would not be too sure of that, Merlin!" Gwaine called out as he sauntered off, evidently to collect Leon and hopefully to go down to await Arthur below the gorge after.

Down and ahead of him the nine year old Arthur nimbly and effortlessly climbed further down. Painfully and precariously Merlin followed, here and there reaching out to his magic to steady himself unobtrusively. Despite the magical help, all too soon his arm and leg muscles started to shake from exertion and continued strain.

Arthur had stopped a few yards ahead of Merlin. His small frame sat on a sturdy looking overhanging boulder, still at least a dozen feet from the uneven ground below. The sun hit his blond hair square on, his shoulders now hunched – a big contrast with his earlier playful mischievous attitude - and it looked like he wore both a crown and the burdens of a kingdom already.

It made Merlin think of his Arthur. This time tomorrow the boy would be gone and the king in his place. Hopefully.

As if reading his thoughts, the boy grit out with a mixture of sullenness and angriness, "Why do you want to get rid of me? Why can't I stay here?"

Merlin, clamping for dear life onto a spiky bush that protruded from the stone wall, focused on making the last few steps – and making them appear magicless - to join Arthur before answering.

"Oh, sweet turnip," the insult an endearment now. He sat himself next to the boy, the boulder big enough for both of them. Arthur leaned away. "I would love to have you stay here," he answered honestly, "but Gaius figures you must have switched with your older counterpart, our Arthur. That means this time now has no king, and your time has two. That cannot be good, can it?"

Arthur shook his head slowly, accepting of the answer though not liking it one bit. "No," he murmured, "it will cause war and unrest." His shoulders caved in further.

Merlin nodded, knowing that Arthur always had a good head for politics.

"But..." Arthur started.

"But what?" Merlin gave him a gentle full body nudge and caught Arthur smile.

"But if both times need a king, can't we send father here, and I can stay with you?"

Merlin smiled endeared. He did not want to imagine Uther influencing this timeline again: the memory of the old king's spirit striking against all Arthur had worked for was too harsh and recent, but the boy did not need to know these thoughts. "That is a very clever solution, my prince, though I doubt it will work that way. Remember Gaius said that there needs to be an actual exchange? King Uther died a few years back in this time. Who would we swap?"

Arthur looked despondently to his boots bungling over the ledge of the boulder and said nothing. Merlin frowned at the boy he had learned to get to know the past month.

"I thought you would be exited to finally get back. Don't you want to get back to your friends?" Merlin remembered the initial temper tantrums the boy had had when he had just arrived and when he'd tried to use his title to assert himself in this completely unknown world. Magic had been blamed a lot. There had been many a request to Queen Guinevere to put Merlin or Gwaine in the stocks for insubordination. There had been more tantrums when he realised that no-one took him seriously and just found him adorable.

The moment young Arthur understood Gaius' theories about what must have happened, he'd turned a lot more accepting, open, curious and cooperative. Excited to help work on a solution. Right until a few hours ago.

"I do want to go back, but..." Arthur swung his legs nervously, "the knights are much nicer here and they take me on adventures! In my time I have to stay in and read and write and do calculations with Geoffrey all the time and they don't let me play as much as here. And you are the most fun nanny I have had, and the kids in town are more friendly, and they are not afraid of me – or of the knights – or of anything really. It is nice here and I am not sure if I want to go back anymore."

"Oh sweet, sweet dollophead" Merlin's arm encircled the boy and pulled him in for an embrace, feeling the golden hair tickle under his nose. "I want to keep you here too. Older you can learn something from you about opening up and showing a gentler side. Though I do love the prat, I much prefer working for you than for His Grumpiness." With a fond smile he jostled the boy a bit who looked back as if wanting to berate Merlin for insulting his older self. Merlin ignored it.

"Don't you see, older you made this place as peaceful and friendly as it is now and we need him to keep it so - " and to fully expand it to the magical community, hopefully, maybe, one day, Merlin did not say, "- The safety of the realm depends on him. Already rumour is spreading to the outer villages and beyond." He refrained from mentioning Morgana as well.

Arthur stared down at his toes again, a small frown on his brow. Merlin added gently, "We also need you to go back and take your place in your time to ensure things go the way they went. Without you there and then I fear what may become of both of our timelines."

Arthur's face scrunched in thought. "But. If this already happened than it must happen again, mustn't it?"

Merlin hesitated. "It may," he hedged, not willing to explain any further. He had discussed the matter with Gaius at length over the past month, but it was a difficult topic to fully discuss with a nine year old boy whose knowledge about the future may impact that same future heavily - which is why they had tried to keep the curious lad out of any politics for the duration of his stay. Merlin had kept his magic away too, but that was par for the course.

Arthur squinted up at Merlin, deeply content in the continuing embrace in a way that Merlin's Arthur never would. He seemed to accept Merlin's non-answer and asked quietly, "What will happen when we reach the cave?"

"There may happen nothing." Merlin said promptly, having gone over this with Gaius too. "Both you and the older Arthur need to be back at the cavern of Trowes located in the valley of the fallen kings. You need to sit on the very stone you were sitting then, at an exact parallel point in time for the switch to happen. You already know the place holds great magic. – " Arthur winced, but nodded. " - Gaius figures that since you swapped at noon during full moon, you may be able to swap at noon during full moon again, tomorrow. But it may be that my Arthur does not know of this and will never visit the place at the correct time again."

It may also be that another cosmic event determines the parallel time cycle, like the stance of some planet in relation to the stars, but any thoughts like that Merlin could not bear to contemplate, let alone acknowledge to the juvenile prince. He had resolutely walked away when Gwen and Leon had started discussing the possibility that they may need to start educating young Arthur soon, have him become their future king.

"Or the clot pole did figure out how things work and will switch time with you. I hope there is a patrol out there looking for you so they can escort you home safely. If not, I packed you provisions for four days. You know how to navigate the forest from here and keep invisible until you are home in case you need to, don't you?"

Merlin looked at the boy worryingly, though the concern was not alone for the boy next to him, but also for his Arthur. Uther must have sent out patrols when he noticed his son was missing; likely he found adult Arthur; possibly executed him with a conviction of magic. Merlin's only comfort was that no-one in Camelot who knew of the exact reasons for the current absence of their king had any recollection of young Arthur disappearing twenty years ago.

The boy shrugged a shoulder. "I can find the castle from here."

"Even when everything looks twenty years younger and even if you end up in a different season? I did add a warm winter coat to your package, just in case." Merlin's stomach knotted uncomfortably at the thought of the boy lost and alone in the valley of the fallen kings.

Arthur nodded in confirmation though. "Gwaine showed me the landmarks that would have remained the same and I know how to navigate based on the sun and the moss."

"Good," Merlin sighed in relief; glad that the 'adventures' the knights had taken this Arthur on had been fruitful.

Arthur shivered a moment in Merlin's arms and Merlin noted that sun had sunken low enough for the trees' shadows to engulf them.

"Come." he nudged. "Let's go up again and back to camp. Leon will worry."

Without complaint, Arthur stood and started climbing just as nimbly as he had gotten down. Merlin cursed Arthur's love for climbing walls under his breath again, making sure this version of his king did not hear it, and started his far more clumsy, though magic-aided, ascend.

Tomorrow, Merlin thought as his magic flowed gentle in his grip, ready to please and tweak and correct and _will_ the rocks beneath his boots and under his fingers to stay in place as he climbed, locking them in time. Might he have the strength to wield and direct the power of the cavern of Trowes if need be, too? Tomorrow he would know. Tomorrow, he would make it so.

**Author's Note:**

> You may have noticed, this is marked complete. ...Sorry... Please, do not hate me for leaving the ending this open. Personally I kinda like this point where anything is still open and a myriad of future universes, both utopic and dystopic, may be possible.  
> Maybe it a consolation that I do have some related oneshots in mind, set in the same universe, relaying parts of how 'Merlin's Arthur' experienced his time in young Arthur's time line, or how this escapade will affect each of the Arthur's time lines upon their return. I am just not sure when I will write them, or how long it will take me if I do. 
> 
> Lastly and most importantly, big thanks to wryter501 for the amazing beta and advice.


End file.
